National links: Chicago considers creating public grocery stores to tackle food deserts

Chicago considers opening public grocery stores in food deserts. States are increasingly overriding city efforts to reduce driving. Effective climate policies combine measures like carbon pricing and cap-and-trade.

Chicago could open its own grocery chain: Chicago is considering opening three groceries to support neighborhoods where national chains have recently shut their doors. The program would be the first time a city tried to operate a publicly-owned grocery store. Community and non-profit groceries have undertaken similar initiatives, but it’s a tough road when they don’t have the purchasing power of large chains and operate with low profit margins. (Patrick Sisson | Fast Company)

States versus cities on transportation: States around the country are passing laws and making moves to preempt city preferences on transportation policy that lean towards less driving. States like North Carolina and New York have limited transit money and congestion policies that cities want, while heaping money on road and highway expansion. Some states are helpful in creating driving reduction goals, but more are needed to stem the tide of climate change. (Sarah Wesseler | Yale Climate Connections)

The climate policies that work best: A new study that looked at 1,500 climate policies across 41 countries over 24 years suggests that the ones that work best at reducing emissions are those that work in combination with others to create synergy. The study only found 63 instances of drastic reductions in emissions but also found that pricing emissions was an effective policy, whether that was carbon pricing or cap and trade programs. (Kate Yoder | Grist)

Saudi Arabia’s $25 billion metro system: Saudi Arabia is finishing up a $25 billion metro network for its capital city, Riyadh. When the system opens, six metro lines and 84 stations, in addition to 80 bus routes throughout the city, will be capable of carrying 1.7 million daily passengers. The contracts for the projects were signed in 2013 and the system is expected to open before the end of 2024. (Joe Edwards | Newsweek)

Olmsted’s Texas Hill Country influence: Fredrick Law Olmsted, the father of modern landscape architecture, made a trip through Texas to the Hill Country in 1853 before designing Central Park in New York City. While just a theory, Clayton Maxwell wonders if that trip left a mark that inspired some of the famous park’s features including Sheep Meadow and many of Olmsted’s design theories. (Clayton Maxwell | Texas Monthly)

Quote of the Week

“Those of us who care about climate change need to see the surface-transportation reauthorization as the next big climate bill.”

Kate Zyla, the executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center in a Slate article discussing how America could break its addiction to highways.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Nico Larco, Director of the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon. We chat about his new book with Kaarin Knudson, The Sustainable Urban Design Handbook as well as a realization about how most of what we do in the United States seems to be bandaids for a lack of urban density.